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Unit 12 Mainly revision

作者:未知来源:中央电教馆时间:2006/4/17 20:29:54阅读:nyq
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Modern zoos

  Modern zoos are different from those built fifty years ago. At that time zoos were places where people could go to see animals from many parts of the world. The animals lived in cages with iron bars(铁栏). Although the zoo keepers took good care of them, many of the animals did not feel comfortable, and they often fell ill. In modern zoos .people can see animals in more natural conditions. The animals are given more freedom in larger places so that they can live more as they would in nature. Even the appearance of zoos has changed. Trees and grass grow in cages, and water flows through the places the animals live in. There are few bars; instead there is often a deep ditch(沟), filled with water, which surrounds a space where several sorts of animals live together as they would naturally. In an American zoo, the visitors can walk through a huge special cage that is filled with trees .some small animals and many birds, and large enough for the birds to live naturally. In a zoo in New York. with the use of special nightlight, people can observe certain animals that are active only at night, when most zoos are closed. Some zoos have special places for visitors to watch animals that live in the desert or under water. Modern zoos not only show animals to visitors’ but also keep and save rare animals. For that reason, fifty years from now, the grandchildren of today’s visitors will still he able to enjoy watching these animals.




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Giant Panda

  What animal is black and white and loved all over the world? If you guessed the giant panda, you’re right! The giant panda is also known as the panda bear, bamboo bear, or in Chinese as Daxiongmao, the “large bear cat.” In fact, its scientific name means “black and white cat - footed animal.”
  Giant pandas are found only in the mountains of central China, in small isolated areas of the north and central portions of the Sichuan Province, in the mountains bordering the southernmost part of Gansu Province and in the Qinling Mountains of the Shaanxi Province.
  Ciant pandas live in dense bamboo and coniferous forests at altitudes of 5,000 to 10,000 feet. Tie mountains are shrouded in heavy clouds with torrential rains or dense mist throughout the year.
  Giant pandas have existed since the Pleistocene Era (about 600,000 years ago), when their geographic range extended throughout southern China. Fossil remains also have been found in present - day Burma.

  Giant pandas are bear - like in shape with striking black and white markings. The ears, eye patches, legs and shoulder band are black; the rest of the body is whitish. They have thick, woolly coats to insulate them from the cold. Adults are four to six feet long and may weigh up to 350 pounds, about the same size as the American black bear. However, unlike the black bear, giant pandas do not hibernate and cannot walk on their hind legs.
  The giant panda has unique front paws, one of the wrist bones is enlarged and elongated and is used like a thumb, enabling the giant panda to grasp stalks of bamboo. They also have very powerful jaws and teeth to crush bamboo. While bamboo stalks and roots make up about 95 percent of its diet, the giant panda also feeds on gentians, irises, crocuses, fish, and occasionally small rodents. It must eat 20 to 40 pounds of food each day to survive, and spends ten to sixteen hours a day feeding.
  The giant panda reaches breeding maturity between four and ten years of age. Mating usually takes place in the spring, and three to five months later, one or two cubs weighing three to five ounces each is born in a sheltered den. Usually only one cub survives. The eyes open at one to two months and the cub becomes mobile at approximately three months of age. At twelve months the cub becomes totally independent. While their average life span in the wild is about fifteen years, giant pandas in captivity have been known to live well into their twenties.
  Scientists have debated for more than a century whether giant pandas belong to the bear family, the raccoon family or a separate family of their own. This is because the giant panda and its cousin, the lesser or red panda, share many characteristics with both bears and raccoons. Recent DNA analysis indicates that giant pandas are more closely related to bears and red pandas are more closely related to raccoons. Accordingly, giant pandas are categorized in the bear family while red pandas are categorized in die raccoon family.
  In 1869, a French missionary and naturalist named Pere Armand David was the first European to describe the giant panda. In 1936, clothing designer Ruth Harkness brought the first live giant panda, named Su - Lin, out of China and to the West. Su - Lin lived at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo and was a celebrity until he died in 1938. Today, 124 giant pandas are found in Chinese zoos. Only about 20 giant pandas live in zoos outside of China. In 1980, the first giant panda birth outside China occurred at the Mexico City Zoo.
  Until recently, Washington, D.C.’s National Zoo housed Ling- Ling and Hsing- Hsing, perhaps the most well - known giant pandas in North America. A gift from the People’s Republic of China to the people of the United States, they were presented as a gesture of amity and goodwill to President Richard Nixon when he visited China in 1972. Ling- Ling, at age 23, died in December 1992.
This fact sheet comes courtesy of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.




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Most Successful Animal Alive

  Which is the most successful animal alive today? Is it the lion, yawning(打着呵欠的)and stretching in the midday African sun, or is it some insect in millions, deep in the Amazon rainforest? A good case could be made for humans themselves, of course. But the animal that seems to have made the most of its limited opportunities is the domestic (家养的) sleep, closely followed by the horse, the pig, the cow, the dog, and all the other domesticated creatures.
  These animals have hitch-hiked(得免费搭车的机会) a ride with humans on the fast track to development. They have escaped the pressures which would have wiped some of them out and increased their share of the total living matter on earth. In 1860, humans and domesticated animals represented about five percent of all plant and animal life, while today they are about twenty percent, according to biologist Raymond Coppinger of Hampshire College, Massachusetts. “The domestic animals, the dependent animals, the ones that have made themselves fit in with the existence of humans, they are the success stories in the history of animal development,” he says.
  This is certain to cause an argument because it denies a central claim(要求)of the animal rights movement. Among those who argue that animals should have the same rights as humans, domestication means humans profiting (得益)from animals; as they see it, humans have simply used animals for their own selfish purposes, using increasingly cruel methods.The idea that domestication (驯化), instead of serving a human purpose, has actually helped animals to survive and develop is revolutionary and will probably make the animal rights movement even angrier. Yet there is evidence to support it.
  But if, as it seems, it was animals that took the first step in the process of domestication, agreeing to live with humans on a voluntary(自愿的) basis. What exactly did they get from it? Biologists argue that the driving force in all animals is the desire to ensure that they and their future generations survive, and if this is right then it is clear where the benefits to animals lay. Wild sheep today have been almost wiped out, wild cows have been wiped out and wild horses would very likely have been wiped out if it were not for domestication.



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